In a pale yellow bedroom on a farm in the Heartland, the girl shook violently.
“Jim, get the strap!” her mother cried, and the girl’s father wedged the thin belt between her molars seconds before the edges of her teeth bit hard into the soft leather, adding to the constellation of puncture wounds already there. After a moment, the trembling subsided. The girl lay still.
“Just lie back easy now, Sarah Beth,” the girl’s father said.
The farmer closed the door. In the small kitchen, his wife went back to scrubbing out the cast-iron pot. On the table, the Sears, Roebuck catalog lay open to a page of shiny new Singer sewing machines they couldn’t afford. The farmer lit the lantern. “Gonna see to the cows,” he said, not expecting an answer.
In the soft evening light, the farmer looked out at the long, flat line of the horizon, broken only by a lone telephone pole in the distance, the future edging closer. He surveyed the yellowing acres of failing corn, the gnarled hickory tree, the pigs rooting for scraps in a pen bordered by a rotting split-rail fence, and the sagging porch of the old house that had been built by his grandfather’s hands as a legacy to his children. Promising black soil had gone to scrub and dust in places now that the farmer and his wife had been forced to let the hired hands go. And anyway, most of them were wary of Sarah Beth, who stared into space and babbled about strange visions that frightened the farmer and his wife.
Sometimes those visions came true.
That scared them more.
From his pocket, the farmer took out the sheriff’s notice: foreclosure on the family farm at 144 Benedict Road, Bountiful, Nebraska. Without some miracle, the little that was left would all be lost. And where would they go then? How would they care for Sarah Beth?
“The land is old, the land is vast, he has no future, he has no past, his coat is sewn with many woes, he’ll bring the dead, the King of Crows.”
The farmer startled. A moment ago, his daughter had been lying on her bed, eyes closed. Now she was a few feet away.
“Sarah Beth. What are you doing out here?”
The girl had that icy stare. The one her mother feared might belong to demons.
“They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming, honey? Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Roscoe are over to Omaha this week.”
The girl rocked back and forth. “The Diviners.”
Sudden anger rose in the farmer. “Sarah Beth. Go on back to your mama now. Hey-oh! Ada!”
“Storm’s coming. And with it come the dead,” the girl said, urinating into the parched earth.
The farmer was a good man, but even good men have a breaking point. “Ada! Ada! Doggone it, come out here and get Sarah Beth right now!”
Dutifully, the farmer’s wife bustled out, wiping her hands on her apron. “Mercy me, only had my back turned for a minute. Come on back in the house now, Sarah Beth, ’fore you catch your death.”
“The King of Crows is coming for the Diviners,” the girl repeated, smiling. “Ghosts on the road! Ghosts on the road! Ghosts on the road!”
She shrieked, and a plume of black birds raced up to meet night’s descent.
Adelaide Keziah Proctor lay quietly in her bed. Through the open window, she smelled honeysuckle. She was sure of it. Summer. Summer would come soon. She was tired, though, and so she shut her eyes and dozed.
In her mind, she rode swiftly through Virginia grasslands on the back of a white horse. She enjoyed the feel of the wind on her face as they raced up a hill. At the top, Addie could see quite far—into the green-gold valley and to the hunched backs of the blue-gray mountains just beyond. The fields below bloomed with every color of wildflower imaginable. The air was perfumed with their sweetness. Addie patted the horse’s neck and took in a breath. Her heart beat fast from the ride and she needed rest.
Down in the valley, she could see a little clapboard church. She spurred the horse toward it. Inside the church’s steepled tower, a bell tolled loudly. The church doors swung open. Six men in black coats carried out a coffin. Their sharp-toed shoes disturbed the dust on the road like beaks biting into earth. The silk veils of their black top hats fluttered behind them in the breeze. The wind had grown fierce. Heavy clouds moved in, a storm approaching. Addie slipped off her horse and led him toward the church for shelter. Just till the storm passed.
It was very dark inside the church, and the horse arched its head and refused to go any farther, so Addie left it and continued alone. Her foot caught under something unseen and she went flying, landing with a thud. Her hands met with dirt. She had tripped over a long, thick vine. She heard slow, measured footsteps drawing near and saw a pair of those sharp shoes. They’d been polished to a shine as high as new pennies placed atop a corpse’s eyelids.
Addie looked up. The King of Crows towered over her, smiling his mirthless grin. “Did you think you could best me, Witch?”
His voice echoed in the forest. The crows answered in squawking chorus.
Addie struggled to her feet. The fall from the horse had winded her—she could barely catch her breath. Her heart beat out a warning. She tried to turn back, but the way was no longer clear. She stood now in a dark forest thick with slithering brambles. Along the branches of the bitter-frost trees, a murder of crows fluttered like blue-black leaves in a breeze. The dead rustled in the spaces in between, and above, the sky was a vast and starless night. This was his place. The land of the dead.
Far behind her, Addie saw a rectangle of daylight narrowing to nothing as the pallbearers sealed the church doors.
“A debt must be paid.” The King of Crows held a daisy in the scarred palm of his gray hand.
Adelaide Proctor’s heart thumped like a herd of wild mustangs.
“Good-bye, Adelaide Keziah Proctor.” The King of Crows closed his fingers one by one over the daisy. And then he squeezed.
Blood and petals slipped through his shaking fingers.
Addie shut her eyes and clutched at her chest, gasping in pain.
The crows screamed and screamed.
When Addie opened her eyes again, she saw the coffin lid sliding over her face. She pressed frantic hands against her wooden prison.
“No!” she cried.
The hammers were already at work; Addie could hear them pounding in the nails that sealed her inside. Clumps of dirt splattered against the top of the pine box like heavy rain. In her mind, she could see bloodied daisy petals falling slowly over her new grave.
As her heart slowed, Adelaide Proctor took in a shuddering breath.
But it was not enough for a scream.
Whispers coiled about the graveyards. Sins bubbled up from the dirt and confessed over tombstones in a chorus of regret:
“… I once killed a man for spite.…”
“… Butchered the women and children as they ran from their teepees and took the land for our own…”
“… All that good love thrown away, oh, what a fool I was…”
“… No, no, please, she said, but I did it anyway.…”
“… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.…”